Question and Answer with NME's winner of the God-like Genius Award '12

You once worked as a roadie. Did your job include procuring drugs for the band?
Fertile.green, Columbia, MO
The band, the Inspiral Carpets, didn’t take drugs, so there was more for the crew. I look back on those days as some of the best of my life. No photographs, no interviews. Just get up in the morning, make sure the gear works, do the gig and then fucking party.

Your new album is called Dig Out Your Soul, which doesn’t make much sense. None of your album titles make sense. Do you have trouble naming albums?
Noeliam87, Meriden, CT
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols—does that make sense? Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band—does that make sense? Dig Out Your Soul is a metaphor for DJ’ing, when you get out a soul record. The double meaning is, you can also try and find yourself. I wouldn’t expect Americans to get it.

Dude, Jay-Z did an Oasis song at the Glastonbury Festival this summer after you questioned whether he belonged there. Why don’t Oasis do a version of Jay-Z’s “99 Problems”?
Rosiyoung, Seattle
That’s ridiculous. What did I think of Jay-Z doing “Wonderwall”? It was pretty* funny. But I’m not sure one should be seen in public with a white Stratocaster.

I’m an aesthetician and I have to wonder: Has a girlfriend ever tried to get you to tweeze your unibrow?
Tanman41, Oxford, MI
I don’t speak to my girlfriends. [Laughs.] No. My eyebrows are wild and free, man.

What was the last gift you gave your brother Liam?
Sweetnsalty, Pullman, WA
I bought him a necklace that John Lennon used to wear, but that was years ago. I’m very difficult to buy for, too. When my birthday comes round, I say to my girlfriend, “Let’s just go out and get drunk.”

What was the stupidest thing you bought when you became rich?
Now_im_64, Denver
I had built for me a customized 1967 Mark II Jaguar convertible at a cost of £110,000, and I haven’t got a driving license. It’s useless to me. I ordered this car and thought, By the time they build it, I will have passed my driving test. By the time I got a call saying they were delivering it, I’d forgotten all about it. Outside my house was this fucking £110,000 Jag. I couldn’t even remember ordering it.

How many pints can you handle before you’re on your knees?
Woody2oo4, Durham, U.K.
I can drink all fucking day and night and it doesn’t put a dent in me.

What are the most typically British things about you?
Landon, Keni, Berkshire, U.K.
My sense of humor and my sense of style. We might have shit teeth, but we’ve got better clothes and better music, and that’s the end of that.

What are the three things you do when you check into a hotel room?
Klapadam, Fordoche, LA
I phone home and see how my girlfriend and kids are, then I get in the shower and check out my surroundings. I love hotels. I love being in America when the football season’s on. I’m probably the only Englishman who understands the rules of American football. I was on acid one night when I was a teenager, and I just got it. It was a revelation. Never got baseball, though. Fuck that. It goes on for *fucking hours.

I’m handing you a gun with four bullets. Do you take out Radiohead or do you take out Coldplay?
Setfreesimon, Daytona Beach, FL
I’d take out neither. Chris Martin’s a friend of mine. And I think Radiohead’s guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, is a fucking genius. Every time I see them live they blow me away. But Radiohead are not as good as people think they are. They’ve been making the same record for the last five years, if you ask me.

Why can’t I ever find any good new rock bands? Every time I turn on the radio, it’s nothing but rap. What the fuck is happening?
Mph1978, Amsterdam, NY
There’s still a lot of good rock & roll: Black Mountain are incredible, Mando Diao, a band from North London called the Jim Jones Revue. Unfortunately, we live in the age of rap and R&B. Don’t listen to the radio, that’s my advice.

I’ve read that you and your brother don’t speak to your dad. What was the last straw that made you decide to end the relationship?
Athomepap, Anaheim, CA
He was a violent man, and violence toward my mother was the last straw. We were teenagers. It makes me fervently believe in the cosmic law of karma—little did he know that 15 years from that point, his two sons were going to be in one of the biggest fucking bands ever to come out of England. I sit and chuckle about that sometimes.

What will Amy Winehouse be doing in two years?
Whuddashamey, Munster, IN
Who gives a shit? People like that have got no pride in themselves. My message to her would be: Go make another record, or did the pressure of this one fry your little brain so you became a junkie? I don’t care for fuck-ups.

When will you finally make a solo album?
Pil, Nuuk, Greenland
I’d like for us to do separate projects after this record. We’d all have to agree on it, so it will probably never happen. I’ve got loads of new songs. Somewhat predictably, they’re all brilliant.

I was close to the front at your Arena Newcastle gig on the Don’t Believe the Truth tour. I had a sleeveless Nike vest on. You looked at me funny. Did the top make me look gay?
Marley_Urwin, Newcastle Upon Tyne, U.K.
I would have thought so, yeah. Sleeve*less tops are a no-no.

I read you held up a corner shop when you were a kid. What kind of weapon did you have? And what’s a corner shop?
Charleebitez, Janesville, MN
I didn’t “hold up” the corner shop. We don’t do weapons in England. A corner shop is just a grocery store on the corner. Two ladies ran it, and I think we robbed a load of cigarettes and sold them to buy drugs. [Looks guilty.] I got caught.

What’s the most important thing for me to remember if I get into a fight?
TimBoslyce, Richmond, VA
Make sure the other guy’s not carrying a knife. Do I still fight Liam? Yeah. The only way anyone will win is who dies first. When he’s 87 years old, if he dies before me, I’ll say, “See?”

How would your third album, Be Here Now, have turned out if you hadn’t discovered cocaine?
Nathanputtick, Melbourne, Australia
It would have been a lot shorter, and it would have had better lyrics. The royalties were coming in from Morning Glory—we were rich, and we went bananas, doing more drugs than any Colombian. Can I just point out that Be Here Now did sell 9.5 million copies? If any band sells 9.5 million albums this year, I’ll fucking shit in my trousers.